1872 guillotine on public display at French museum

A French museum is giving members of the public the rare chance to see a guillotine up close.

The execution tool has been on public display only three times since France abolished the death penalty in 1981. 

Now the Mucem (the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations) in Marseille is letting visitors see one again for free, to mark the entry of Robert Badinter into the Panthéon on October 9. It was Badinter who enacted its abolition while serving as justice minister under François Mitterrand.

The guillotine on display was constructed in 1872, replacing the one burned during the Paris Commune in 1870, and is made of wood and metal. 

While the guillotine is for many people associated with the French Revolution, France continued to use it as its method of execution until the abolition of the death penalty. The last execution took place in 1977. 

It was added to France’s national collections in 1982 at the suggestion of Badinter, who imposed the restriction that it could not be exhibited to the public before the year 2000.

This was “a sign of the emotional and political significance it represented”, Mucem said in a statement. 

Today, “transformed into a heritage object, it bears witness to a bygone era and to the political and social struggles that led to the abolition of the death penalty”. 

The guillotine was invented at the end of the 18th Century to make executions quicker and more egalitarian. It became the official tool for capital punishment in 1792. 

Originally named Louisette after its designer Antoine Louis, the guillotine ended up taking the surname of physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. He was against the death penalty, and argued the guillotine would be a more humane way to carry out capital punishment. 

The guillotine came into its own during the Reign of Terror, the period of the French Revolution from around 1793-1794 when between 15,000 and 17,000 people are estimated to have been guillotined. 

Among these were King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Other famous victims included revolutionary leaders Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. 

The guillotine is also associated with the tricoteuses, or ‘knitting women’ – a nickname given to the working class, politically engaged women during the French Revolution, who supported the Jacobins and would, it is said, sit beside the guillotine at public executions and continue to knit. 

The image endured in depictions such as Madame Defarge, a bloodthirsty tricoteuse in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. 

Executions by guillotine took place in public squares until 1939, when they were moved behind prison walls. 

It was used for the last time on September 10, 1977, at the Baumettes prison in Marseille, for the execution of Hamida Djandoubi, 27, convicted of the kidnapping, torture and murder of 21-year old Elisabeth Bousquet. 

It marked the last execution by beheading of any Western nation and the last capital execution in France. 

The abolition of the death penalty was not a popular move; at the time it was banned some 62% of the population wanted France to keep the guillotine. 

And despite the fact it was abolished over 40 years ago, French attitudes towards capital punishment are still surprisingly supportive. 

Over half of people (55%) support bringing back the death penalty according to a 2020 poll by Ipsos / Sopra Steria, up from 30% in the early 2000s.